Protein is a fundamental building block of good nutrition, and the most accessible way of getting it into the diet is a daily portion of something which has clucked, mooed or looked over a farm gate. Yet while meat may be packed with protein, in an effort to enhance flavour, extend bulk and reduce the need for chewing, the meat-processing industry has over the years taken to adding things to the product which aren't naturally there.

One of the most common additives is water, to increase weight, which while viewed as deception by chefs and customers alike, is at least a benign additive until it disappears into steam and the meat assumes its natural weight. Bulking agents such as soya or bread are similarly used to lower production costs by replacing meat. But while water and bulking agents as additives can be annoying, they're not working against a healthy diet.

The additives causing the current greatest angst are fat, salt, sugar and a magician's bag of e-numbers, phosphates, obscure acids and emulsifiers.

As the main body promoting red meat consumption in Britain, the Meat & Livestock Commission (MLC) has a huge vested interest in chiming with customer focus and current nutritional thinking. Tony Goodger, the MLC's foodservice trade manager, says it recognised the consumer movement away from additives in meat products well before it became the stuff of newspaper headlines and shifted the way it constructs meat-based recipes for its catering help service.

Says Goodger: "All recipes developed by the MLC are free from additional salt, sugar and unnecessary fat." And in a remarkable sidestep from the main brief of the MLC to promote just red meat, the recipe service aimed at catering also includes a portion of fruit or vegetable in each recipe or as part of the serving suggestion, and the recommendation of a carbohydrate side-serving.

Salt in processed meat products has become a particular target for the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which has recruited some high-profile chefs to tub-thump against excessive amounts.

Antony Worrall Thompson is more often seen campaigning against regulations surrounding food than wanting controls brought in, but has singled out salt content in processed meat products being fed to schoolchildren as a particular problem area in his backing for the FSA campaign.

Anton Edelmann believes the problem extends to some chefs who are too free with the salt cellar themselves. "Chefs need to understand that flavour and taste don't suffer if you remove salt. Salt simply covers up bad cooking and poor quality ingredients," he maintains.

Fat content in processed meat products aimed at the catering market got the biggest hammer-blow last year when Jamie Oliver highlighted Bernard Matthews and its Turkey Twizzlers as the nadir of what the processed meat industry was putting on the plates of schoolchildren.

Unfairly, in the eyes of many in the catering industry, the Norfolk-based poultry processor became branded as the single villain in the additives-in-processed-meat controversy, when in fact it was an industry-wide issue.

Bernard Matthews has stayed tight-lipped on the Turkey Twizzlers issue, but it's fair to say that as with almost all suppliers of processed meat products into the cost-sensitive end of the catering market, the content of its products which took most of the flak was driven largely by the price point the customers were demanding. While institutional caterers were portrayed as the victims and manufacturers the villains, the truth is that at least there's culpability on both sides.

Sensitive that a brand name which has been synonymous with healthy white meat was being damaged, Bernard Matthews has been doing a turkey-trot in reformulating products going into food service to reduce both fat and salt content - but says it had been doing so long before the issue became so public. And it points out that despite the vilification, Turkey Twizzlers, which it describes as a sausage-style product rather than a turkey product, contains less fat than a typical sausage.

Other institutional favourites from Bernard Matthews such as Golden Drummers have also been reformulated, to contain less fat and to comply with the acclaimed Hungry For Success guidelines launched late last year as a way of promoting healthier school meals in Scotland.

Grampian Foodservice, another substantial supplier of processed poultry into catering, has also included a reduced salt and fat choice into its range of chicken products aimed at schools, including a battered chicken nugget which pre-regeneration contains just 9% fat. Deep-frying would substantially add to that, but fast-baking in a combi-oven, increasingly the way schools are regenerating coated meat products, would slightly reduce fat while maintaining crispness.

Grampian has also addressed the other additive demon of processed meat, the sausage, and produced one aimed at the institutional sector which has a fat content reduced to 9.2% compared with up to 20% in standard economy sausages.

All school meal providers are looking to reduce salt, fat and sugar in meat products, but most, like Catering Direct, the in-house caterer for Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council in South Wales, know that switching to healthier meat products on the school menu is an inclusive procedure between supplier, meal provider and customer, and not done by edict. To this end, the company worked with processed poultry manufacturer Plusfood to trial a reduced-salt version of ketchup-flavoured Chick n Crispies, which have a coating of rice flakes rather than breadcrumb.

Alyson Rees, secondary operations manager for Catering Direct, trialled the new nuggets at Treorchy Secondary School before a full production run began in the Plusfood factory. "The kids don't want to eat anything that seems healthy," she says. "The product we tested was real meat, not overprocessed, and yet children didn't perceive them as being healthy." The tests were successful, and the product features on the menus of Catering Direct's schools in South Wales.

While the focus has been primarily on fat and salt, manufacturers are also taking a wider view on additives and cutting back on all but the necessary. Padley's, another big supplier of processed meats into catering, has not only taken the salt and fat content of its new Plain Chicken Breast Steak below the Hungry For Success recommended guidelines, but also uses no mechanically recovered meat (MRM), artificial colours, preservatives or added flavours.

And like Plusfood, Padley's was mindful of maintaining sales on the servery counter with a reduced-additive product and did testing among children before launching into full production. The result was positive, and the new chicken product scored a 96% satisfaction rating.

Salt facts

Salt is made up of two chemicals, sodium and cholride - and it's the sodium that can be bad for health. It's usually listed in the nutritional information on the packaging of meat products, particularly those aimed at the school meals and healthcare sectors.

Some labels may also list the salt content, but usually it's just the soduim content of the added salt.

The recommended daily intake of salt is 6g, about a teaspoonful. However, since almost all manufacturers of processed meat list just the sodium content of the added salt, the figure on the label is much lower than if the overall salt content were listed.

This is where the mixed messgaing on food labelling comes in.

The Food Standards Agency talks in grams of salt content, the processed meat industry in sodium content. For caterers with a nutritional interest in knowing the salt as well as the soduim content of foods, there's an easy calculation - multiply the sodium content declared on the label by 2.5 to discover the salt content.